1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a mould container for an apparatus for manufacturing the green bricks from clay for the brick manufacturing industry, wherein mould containers are arranged on a circulating conveyor, which mould containers comprise a number of mould cavities open to the top.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Such mould containers are known for instance from NL-C-1000186.
The mould containers are especially manufactured for one shape of green brick. Large quantities of green bricks of the same shape can thus be produced.
In particular cases it is desired to be able to make a small batch of green bricks, wherein the shape of the green bricks differs from the shape defined by the mould containers. In order to enable manufacture of such a small batch, new mould containers have to be manufactured which are then mounted in the apparatus. In addition to the high cost of manufacturing the mould containers, loss also occurs in converting the apparatus from the one type of mould container to the other type of mould container.
It is an object of the invention to obviate the above stated drawbacks.
This objective is achieved according to the invention in that the mould container comprises a fixed mould container part with mould cavities and an exchangeable mould container part. In such a mould container the fixed mould container part remains mounted on the conveyor, while the exchangeable mould container part can simply be replaced, whereby it becomes possible to provide a number of mould cavities of different dimensions in the mould container. Green bricks of a standard size are thus formed during production by the fixed mould container part, while the exchangeable mould container part can manufacture bricks of any desired shape.
The exchangeable mould container part preferably comprises at least one mould cavity open to the top. This mould cavity defines the shape of the desired green bricks for the small batch.
In another embodiment the exchangeable mould container part comprises a bottom movable in the mould cavity. The bottom is adapted to the form of the mould cavity and can thus push out the green brick formed in the mould cavity.
In yet another embodiment according to the invention the exchangeable mould container part comprises a closed upper surface. In particular cases it is desired not to provide all mould containers with an exchangeable mould container part of different shape, because the desired batch is for instance very small or because the production speed of this differing batch is otherwise too high. By now providing some mould containers with an exchangeable mould container part with closed upper surface, no green bricks of different shape will be formed in these mould containers.
The invention further comprises an apparatus for manufacturing green bricks from clay for the brick manufacturing industry, which apparatus comprises:
a circulating conveyor carrying mould containers, wherein the mould containers each comprise a number of mould cavities open to the top;
a filling device placed above the chain for filling the mould cavities with clay; and
a grid plate placed between the filling device and the chain for guiding the clay into the mould cavities, which is characterized in that the mould containers comprise at least one mould container according to the invention.
In such an apparatus the grid plate ensures that the flow of clay is such that the mould cavity is wholly filled. When the mould container parts are now exchanged, the grid plate then also has to be modified, so that the flow of clay is also properly guided into the mould cavities of modified shape.
In a preferred embodiment of the apparatus according to the invention the grid plate comprises an exchangeable grid part. The whole grid plate does not hereby need to be exchanged when the mould container parts are exchanged, but only a part of the grid plate need be exchanged.